常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解(美国戏剧)【圣才出品】

第19章美国戏剧

19.1 复习笔记

I. Overview of American drama（美国戏剧概述）

American drama began in 1916 when the Provincetown Players produced Eugene O’Neil’s first play, Bound East for Cardiff. It is true that there were no great masters in the theater comparable in stature to such major figures in fiction as Melville or James, but there had been people who did spadework for the rise of American drama in the 1920s. There was a renaissance of drama in the 1920s. American drama began the process of developing itself into a department of American literature equal in significance to both poetry and the novel. The theater of the Depression was not depressing. Like other branches of literature the drama was preoccupied with social concern. The staging of Tennessee Williams’The Glass Menagerie on Broadway in 1945 was an even of unusual significance, as it marked American drama’s coming of age. The late fifties saw a temporary decline in dramatic productions, but in the next decade, American drama picked up a good deal of fresh energy. With the passage of time there has appeared the increasingly more obvious tendency to “decentralize”from Broadway with more and more plays stages Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway. And from the end of the sixties.

American theater entered a new phase in its development when diversity became one of its salient features.

美国戏剧开始于1916年普罗文斯顿剧团演出奥尼尔第一出戏《东航卡迪夫》之时。19世纪没有戏剧大师问世，戏剧界没有声名如麦尔维尔或詹姆斯那样的大手笔，但是不能由此而忽视，在戏剧领域有不少人在辛勤耕耘，为20世纪20年代美国戏剧的复兴进行着准备工作。20世纪20年代美国戏剧经历了一场复兴。美国戏剧成为美国文学中独立的分支，与诗歌和小说相媲美。大萧条期间的戏剧并不沉闷。像文学的其他分支一样，戏剧较多地关注社会生活。1945年田纳西·威廉姆的《玻璃动物园》的上演具有重大的意义，它标志着美国戏剧的成熟。50年代后期美国戏剧经历了短暂的衰落。但是在60年代美国戏剧获得了新的能量。随着时间的推移，出现了远离百老汇的趋势。越来越多的剧目在外百老汇和外外百老汇上演。在60年代末美国戏剧进入了新的发展阶段，多样化已成为它的显著特点之一。

II. Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)（尤金·奥尼尔）

1. Life（生平）

Eugene O’Neill was America’s greatest playwright. He was born in New York. His father was a famous actor and O’Neill traveled around with his father’s group and took a year in Princeton, from which he was expelled because of misbehavior. Then he began his experience of wandering and loafing about which stand him in good stead. In the winter of 1912-13 he developed tuberculosis and was sent to a sanitarium. In this period he read widely in the world’s dramatic literature. In 1916 his one-act play Bound East for Cardiff was staged. The event marked the beginning of O’Neill’s long and successful dramatic career and

ushered in the modern era of the American Theater. O’Neill was a prize-winning playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie between 1920 and 1922, and the Nobel Prize in 1936.

尤金·奥尼尔是美国最伟大的剧作家。他出生于纽约市，他的父亲是当时有名的演员。幼年时奥尼尔常随父亲的剧团演出。他曾就读于普林斯顿大学，但一年后因行为不端被校方开除。之后他开始了漂泊生涯，这段经历对其创作意义重大。1912年到1913年冬天奥尼尔因肺结核不得不疗养治病。这段时间他广泛阅读世界戏剧名著。1916年他的独幕剧《东航卡迪夫》上演。这标志着奥尼尔漫长且成功的戏剧生涯的开始，也标志着美国戏剧现代化时代的到来。奥尼尔的一生赢得了众多奖项。1920年到1922年间，他的《天边外》和《安娜·克里斯蒂》分别获得普利策奖，1936年他获得了诺贝尔文学奖。

2. Artistic characteristics（艺术特点）

(1) O’Neill was a tireless experimentalist in dramatic art. He took drama away from the old tradition of the last century and rooted it deeply in life. He introduced the realistic or even the naturalistic aspect of life into the American theater.

The stylistic aspect of O’Neill’s art merits notice for its variety and its display of consummate craftsmanship.

(2) He borrowed freely from the best traditions European drama, be it Greek tragedies, or the realism of Ibsen, or the expressionism of Strindberg, and fused them into the organic art of his own. He borrowed freely from modern literary techniques such as the stream-of-consciousness device with the help of which he managed to reveal the emotional and psychological complexities of modern man.